Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-02-04
WORDS FOB woRK1NGMEN,
Address Of Miss Willard, President of
VIC. 7. o., to Labor Organ
isations.

1b&tAVu6s
To I'll Working Mon and Won,en-Brothers and
Sisters Of q Common Hope:
We come to you naturally as our friends
and allies. With such of your methods as
involve cooperation, arbitration and the
ballot-box, We are in hearty sympathy.
Measures which involve the compulsion of
labor, the destruction of property or harm
to life or limb, We profoundly deplore, and
We believe the thoughtful and responsible
among your ranks must equally deplore
them, as not only base in themselves but a
great hindrance to your own welfare and
success. We rejoice in your broad plat
form OF mutual help which recognizes
neither sex, race, nor creed. Especially do
we appreciate the tendency of your great
movement to elevate women industrially to
their r1ghtful place. by claiming that they
have equal pay for equal work: recognizing
them as officers and members of your soci-
cites, and advocating the ballot in their
hands us their ,ightful weapon of self-help
in our representative government.
AS temperance women, we have been
especially glad to note your hostile attitude
toward the saloon, the worst foe of women,
and o. the workingmen, and of the home.
We read with joy Of the vow made by the
newly elected officers of the knights of
Labor, at the convention in Richmond, Va,
when, with hands raised to heaven, they
pledged themselves to total abstinence.
In addressing you at this time we wish
70 offer our sincere congratulations upon
your achievements as practical helpers in
f0ynSN '~n&o. :ol,
cages our steadtast work ana prayers, and
which, as We believe, in olives, beyond al
other movements of this age, your happi-
ness and elevation. Permit us to ask your
careful consideration OF this statement Of
our belief:
The central question of labor reform is
not so much how to get higher wages as
how to turn present wages to better ac-
count; for waste harms most those who
can least afford it. It is not overproduc-
ton so much as undergraduates that
grinds the faces of the worktngmen. Four
teen hundred millions annually drawn,
chiefly from the pockets of working
men, by saloon keepers and cigar dealers,
means less flour in the barrel, less coal in
the cellar, and less clothing for the labor
ers' families. We grieve to see them give
their money for that which is not bread,
and their labor for that which satisfeth not.
We suggest that if, by your request, pay
day was universally changed from Satur-
| day to Monday, this would do much to
increase the capital ut home.
| The ife-insurance statistics prove that
while the average life of the moderate
drinker is but thirty-fve years and half,
that Of the total abstainer is sixty-foul
years. The successful explorers and SOL
diers, the famous athletes. pedestrians
rowers, and shots are men who do not cob.
web their braics OF palsy their nerves witt
alcoholic drink.
We believe that the work of our societies
resulting in laws by which nearly one-hal
the children Of the United States are being
taught in the public schools the evil effects
of intoxicating liquors upon the tissues o
the body and the temper of the mind
merits your earnest cooperation, and vii
prove one of the strongest reinforcement
nobler levels of opportunity. We believ
that the study Of hygiene. including
knowledge of the most healthful foods ant
the discovery that these are the cheaper
nom stimulating class, with careful con.
sideration of the scientific methods BY
which, in the preparation of food, littl'
can DO made to go a long way in hom'
economies, is well worthy of your atten
ton. We ask you to aid us in our endeav
ors to have taught in all the departments O
our public schools those benefcent law
of health which relate to wholesome living
in respect to diet, dress, sleep, exercise, ant
ventilation, SO that this teaching shall bt
given to every child as one of the sures
means to its truest happiness.
We ask your attention to our White Cros
pledge for equal chastity for man and
woman; of pure language and q pure life
We ask your help in our efforts to secure
adequate protection by law for the daugh.
tiers of the poor and rich alike from the
cruelty of base and brutal men. We asl
your help in our endeavors to preserve thu
American Sabbath with its rest and quiet
redeeming it from being as now the har
vest-time of the saloonkeeper, when hi
gathers in the hard earnings OF the work
ingman, and we promise you our CO. opera.
ton in your efforts to secure the Saturda,
half holiday, which, we believe, will do Sc
much to change the Sabbath from Gay OF
recreation to one Of rest at home, and fO
the worship Of God. We rejoice to note
that the Central Labor Union Of New Yorl
City petitioned its municipal officers t.
close the saloons on the Sabbath day, ant
we earnestly hope that all such societies
may soon petition for their closing every
day, aud order perpetual boycott upon the
dealers in alcoholic poison.
We call your attention to our Department.
of evangelistic temperance meeting, worl
for railroad employees, lumbermen, herds.
men, miners, soldiers and sailors; also te
our efforts to organize free kitchen ani
kindergartens, and bands of hope; to sup.
ply free libraries and reading rooms, tenn
perance lodging houses and restaurants
and to reach out a helping hand to falle1
women as we'll as fallen men. We have a
publishing house Mt 161 La Sale street
Chicago, which sent out thirty million pages
of temperance literature in the last year,
and which is conducted by women, and its
types set by women compositors. ON
national organ, the Union Signal, has
good words for III lawful efforts made by
working men and women for their own best
interests.
We ask you to do all in your power fol
the cause of prohibition, which is pre- emf
nently your cause With the dram-shoE
and it's fiendish temptations everthrown,
what might you not attain of that self mas
terry which is the first condition of success
and what might you not achieve of protec-
ton and happiness in those homes which